Tricked into pushing one of the best mowers in the county

By invitation the editor of The Leader was a guest Sunday of the venerable Mr. and Mrs. T.H. Gold of Bedford.

David Stansbury, who Mr. Gold says was one of the best men he ever met, wanted a hand to help mow with a scythe in the meadow. Could Tom Gold mow? He would try. Mr. Stansbury told Tom Gold that another hand would be present to mow. Stansbury broke the information confidentially that the hand aforesaid had the reputation of soldering[sic] on the job, and he would like to have young Gold crowd him a little to get a good day’s work out of him.

Next morning Tom Gold was in the meadow bright and early, with his scythe in perfect condition. It was then that Gard Neer appeared, climbed over the fence, whet his scythe, gave a look at the meadow and then took the lead to split it in the middle. Tom followed. Mr. Neer never stopped.

Faster and faster he went, and Tom exerting every muscle to catch up. Catch him he couldn’t. He couldn’t keep in speaking distance. Reaching the farther side, Mr. Neer whet his scythe and was backswathing his way back long before the struggling Tom had gotten across. Tom whetted his scythe and was desperately trying to make a good finish. It was no go. Gard Neer was a bear cat, beside whom Tom was a helpless novice.

At 10 o’clock, when young Tom Gold was doing anything but crowding his companion, so wet with sweat that there wasn’t a dry thread on him, he chanced to look back and there lay David Stansbury bursting his sides in the cut grass with laughter. Mr. Gold didn’t tell us so but we have a suspicion that Mr. Gold now thinks he had been coached to push one of the best mowers in Rutland Township. If so, it was a naughty trick on the part of David Stansbury, but Mr. Gold enjoys it to this day all the same.

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It is really surprising how much old account books can tell about people and the times. Changes in attitudes, customs, dress, and even the thinking of the people in a given community can be plainly detected and charted.